The First Patient

CHAPTER 42

This is the pharmacist."

"Your name?" Alison asked.

"McCarthy. Duncan McCarthy."

Alison checked the list of qualified pharmacists pasted innocuously in the back of the White House clinic patient ledger. McCarthy's name was there.

"Please fill the full Alupent inhaler prescription that's on file for Alexander May."

May was the code name for a prescription that was going to the White House, and full meant seven identical inhalers.

"The name of the driver who will be picking it up?"

"Cromartie." Alison spelled the name. "Alison Cromartie. I'll present my ID when I come."

"Time?"

"Tonight. No, no, wait. Tomorrow. I'll stop by the hospital to pick it up tomorrow morning."

"Very well," the pharmacist said. "I'll be here."

Alison set down the receiver on the examining room phone and entered the doctor's office-Gabe's office. It was nearing seven and there was no sign of him. She wished that somewhere along the line she had thought to get his cell phone number. There was much for them to talk about. Still, it might have been for the best that she hadn't called him yet. She had time now to think over how much she wanted to disclose-to him or to head of internal affairs Mark Fuller. She had evidence that Treat Griswold was probably involved in a perversion involving young girls-or at least one particular young girl. That in itself made him an easy mark for extortion.

In addition, she had hard evidence that Griswold had broken with unwritten White House law by repeatedly handling the president's medications-specifically his inhaler. Whether or not there was a connection between the inhaler and any psychiatric problems the president might be having would depend on what a sophisticated analysis of the contents revealed.

What she had at this point might have been enough to present to Fuller, but there was no way she was going to put her career on the line and go up against the most powerful and respected agent in the Secret Service without more than indirect evidence and speculation. She needed proof of his relationship to the girls on Beechtree Road, and she needed a positive analysis of the contents of the inhaler he had repeatedly given the president to use. Lester had done his job well, although according to him, his life may have been spared by a fortuitous call on Griswold's cell phone.

If she was to move at all against the president's number-one Secret Service man, she needed absolute proof of wrongdoing. Los Angeles had taught her that having unsubstantiated knowledge, good intentions, and the willingness to engage in a she said/he said confrontation simply wasn't enough to blow the whistle on anyone with clout.

Her plan was to have the contents of several Alupent inhalers analyzed, including the one Lester had taken from Griswold. But there was no way she could risk going through Mark Fuller or anyone else connected with the Secret Service to do so. It seemed Fuller had done a decent job of protecting her identity until now, but despite what he had told her, it was hard to believe no one except Fuller knew that she had been sent into the White House undercover. The Service was very closely knit, and with a man of Griswold's stature involved, sooner rather than later there were bound to be leaks.

Lester had guarded his words closely when they first spoke. If he was actual FBI, would she be giving him up by asking him to come forward and speak to Fuller? Using an FBI operative to trap a Secret Service agent wasn't going to sit well no matter what. Was there any way around doing that?

At the moment, the inhaler was wedged beneath the seat of her car. Was there any lab outside of the government with sophisticated analytical capabilities that she could trust for both reliability and discretion? The answer was most certainly yes, but she had no idea how to locate such a lab or how to approach the people working there.

The Internet? she wondered.

Possibly. She could probably get some idea of the reliability of a place from a phone call to whoever was in charge, but with so much at stake and only one sample, she wanted to know that whatever place she chose was the best.

A better idea would be Gabe.

It was time she trusted someone, and he was the obvious choice. She had already blown her cover to him. Sharing her concerns about Griswold would probably be safe, and with luck Gabe would have had experience in his practice with just the sort of blood chemistry lab she needed.

She took an envelope and a sheet of Gabe's stationery from the desk.

Important stuff to talk about, big fella. Please call me. Anytime, day or night.

A.

She added her home and cell numbers, sealed it, wrote his name and title on the envelope, and set it carefully on the corner of his desk blotter. At that moment, she heard the door to the reception area softly open and close.

"Gabe?" she called out.

Nothing.

Alison checked the placement of the envelope one more time and took several steps toward the outer room. Through the doorway, the room looked empty. Had she really heard something? She felt her pulse accelerate.

"Gabe?… Is somebody out there?"

She stepped through the office doorway into the reception area. Directly across from her, the door to the outside corridor was closed. At that instant she sensed movement from her right. She started to turn, but far too late. A thick, powerful arm locked across her throat, tightening with dizzying force, cutting off her breathing and making it impossible to scream. A cloth saturated with some sort of liquid was pressed over her mouth. The arm across her neck loosened just enough for her to inhale.

"Griswold!" she tried to say, thrashing against his cinder-block body and ineffectually pounding backward at him with her fists and feet. "Griswold, no!"

"What do you think of this stuff, Cromartie, huh?" Griswold asked in a coarse whisper. "State-of-the-art liquid inhaled anesthesia-tasteless, odorless, rapid onset, long acting. Invented by our own people just for us field operatives. If you could get it over a water buffalo's mouth and nose, he'd be on the ground in half a minute. You don't know about it? Oh, sorry. I guess they don't tell snitch nurses, just the real agents. We're kept up on every new drug. As you'll see."

Quickly Alison's terror gave way to impotence and then to a strange detachment. She tried to hold her breath, to continue kicking backward against Griswold's shin. She drove her elbows against his barrel chest. She attempted to bite the hand that was forcing the cloth even tighter against her mouth, crushing her lips against her teeth.

Waves of dizziness and nausea made it impossible to continue struggling. She was going to throw up… throw up and aspirate and choke to death. She was…

The fear, helplessness, and intense nausea gave way to a giddy light-headedness and ennui, then, moments later, to blackness. The last things she heard, from the lips beside her ear, were Griswold's grunting breathing and guttural speech.

"They gave you up, Alison… All I had to do was make one phone call and they gave you up. How's that for respect?"